Spot The Difference
by solochan2014
Summary: After a fierce fight with Nymphadora, Ted and Andromeda discuss their daughter's decisions. (I'm finding it harder and harder for the reasons as to why Tonks's parents would have a big issue with Remus being married to their daughter, so this is my rebuttal to that...)


**Warnings: **Ted being lovely count as a warning?  
**Notes: **I've been RPing Ted and Andromeda, and I'm falling in love with them very easily. Also, I'm finding it harder and harder for the reasons as to why Tonks's parents would have a big issue with Remus being married to their daughter, so this is my rebuttal to that...

* * *

Andromeda had held her head high the whole evening, but Ted knew better. The final argument with their daughter that evening had, without a doubt been one of the hardest conversations Ted had ever had to witness; Mother and daughter out to get their point across without listening to the other.

Sometimes, he wondered if Dora had taken any of the Tonks genes at all, though that couldn't be further from true.

With Dora at work, and her new husband also out, for reasons the pair didn't know, Ted started to search the house for his wife.

It wasn't that the Tonkses' home was huge, far from it, but Andromeda seemed to disappear into crevices to clean that Ted barely knew existed even after living in the same house for at least 30 years.

"'Dromeda?"

"I'm in here, Ted."

The voice was tough, raw to listen to as he turned into the room that used to be Dora's, completely sparse of furniture because she had taken it with her to the Ministry Flat when she'd started training

It had now doubled as a laundry room until this morning when Dora had arrived with Remus in tow, asking for a place for her and her husband to stay.

When Ted walked in, apart from the very few bags that the Lupins had left being the only change to the room, his wife was using a drying spell on some of his shirts.

"I thought I'd find you hiding in here." Ted told her, his arms folded, as his wife didn't quite look him in the eye, dutifully flourishing her wand to the wireless that was set behind her, each shirt put itself on a hanger and hung itself up on the wardrobe behind her.

"I'm not hiding," Andromeda said, still not facing her husband of thirty years.

"Sulking then?"

"I'm not sulking either, Ted," Andromeda told him, this time meting his gaze. "Why would I be sulking?"

"You always sulk after fighting Dora, it's part of the recuperation process." Ted moved into the room, closing the door behind him in case their new houseguests turned up.

"And why don't you sulk after fighting with our daughter?" Andromeda said.

"Simple." He gave her an effortless smile, "I _don't_ fight with her."

Andromeda gave up, hanging up the last shirt before looking to Ted fiercely. "Oh so I'm the villain because I don't think it's fair that we didn't even know about any of this until this morning? That she's married? Married to Sirius's friend?"

Ted sighed, his eyes creased and lines forming after every smile and frown to age him.

"Dromeda, she's twenty five years old…"

"Exactly! She's too young too-"

"_We_ were seventeen when we eloped…"

"But he's twelve years her senior, a werewolf- our marriage was completely _different_—"

Ted raised an eyebrow at his wife, unable to help it, she just couldn't win the argument on this one.

"Oh, it was different, was it? Tell me what is so different about this situation that we have seen our daughter fall into?" Ted sat down on Dora's bed, his arms outstretched, whilst his wife lent against the wardrobe looking weary.

Ted Tonks started to count the points on his fingers, every count making his wife's face pale further and further.

"So, our daughter has fallen in love with someone the wizarding community have set a stigma against during a war that's pulling the wizarding world apart, _again_. That by choosing him she is putting her and him in danger, and now they have eloped because they wanted to be married against the prejudices around them…"

Andromeda watched her husband with a fierce look on her face.

"And now," Ted finished, with a soft expression, his voice still as pleasant as ever that drove his wife mad, "after this morning's conversation she and her husband believes that their own parents against them."

"I'm not against _them_. I'm against…Oh _Ted_!" she said his name with fierce anger then, her hands at her sides. "I didn't want this for her, I didn't—"

Andromeda turned away, to look out of the window of their little home, the home that they had scraped to afford; the home that they had struggled to survive in when they first became husband and wife. No one ever tells you how hard it is to begin a life when everyone is against you, that even having two jobs between you are barely enough to keep food on the table…that the thought of getting through the day without fearing to be found by your in laws and torturing you is a day well spent.

"I just wanted her to be _safe_, not have what we had..."

"I didn't think what we had was so bad?"

"No food and fearing that a death eater was going to kill you every five minutes doesn't sound bad to you, does it?" Andromeda snapped back at him with harsh expression and Ted sighed and wrapped his arms around her when he stood, resting his head on her shoulder.

Andromeda hated how he was always considered the calm one despite the fact he was the one who always acted on his impulses. _Always_. His hands, rough from manual labour in his youth rest against hers and the faint smell of coffee, oil and the faint aroma of a dusty room.

"I know it was hard for us, but I'm afraid Dora's already made her choice without our help. Besides…she's an auror in the Order of the Phoenix…and we can't do anything about that either…but we keep them here and help them feel welcomed as we'd of liked our parents to do and let Dora know that we still love her, that this doesn't change that."

Andromeda Tonks pulled away from her husband to look back at her husband and away from the window, her hands around her chest, looking anxious all of a sudden.

"When did I become my mother, Ted?"

Ted laughed so suddenly that he almost it was a serious question. His wife's fierce eyes met his and he raised his hands in protest.

"You _didn't_. You could never do that, I met your mother remember? When she wasn't so happy to meet me." Ted continued to laugh for a moment before settling himself back into his calm stance, "It's not too late to say sorry…" He played with her hair and the wispy grey streaks that flushed across it.

"And lets' be honest, love. Are you really surprised that Dora would go the more dangerous road? We're not exactly the best role models…a blood traitor and a muggle-born who dared marry a Black. How did you expect her to turn out?"

Andromeda's face buried into Ted's chest, his broad shoulders, and wished she could take away all those horrible things she'd said. She took a breath and then let go of Ted and she gave a sigh.

"You really don't get angry? You don't…feel _disappointed_?"

Ted gently shook his head, his eyes flickering to the window. "I like to tease Dora, but sometimes…us Tonkses just have to go with our gut…I can't by disappointed in that, that's what I've done my whole life, it's what led me to you."

He gave her a knowing smile, squeezed his wife's hand. "I'm making some coffee, do you want some?"

"With carnation milk?"

"That'd be the one."

She nodded as she moved back to the shirts she'd been hanging whilst he moved to the door of the room to leave.

"I love you, Dromeda," came his pleasant tone from the hallway as he headed down the stairs just as Andromeda was about to flourish her wand, she paused, softness in her face, never tiring of her old nickname and his calm words and his impulses and the way he made her feel. She'd tell Dora to give up everything for someone to make her feel like that...

And she would, when it was the right time, when she knew that Dora would be in the mood to listen. Andromeda hung up her first shirt before finally calling back to him.

"I love you too Ted."

And Andromeda was quite sure she could almost hear the way his face could form into that effortless smile all the way from where she was in the bedroom…

…and so, Mrs Tonks smiled back, even if he wasn't there to see it.


End file.
